When it comes to a coherent fashion aesthetic, I don’t have one; beautifully coordinated outfits only exist within my Pinterest boards. From one day to the next my outfits might fit into Barbie core, then dark academia, then punk. There’s no gauging who I want to be until I wake up in the morning and find out. This makes following fashion influencers’ advice impossible. Each influencer tends to follow an aesthetic and curate their feed to be extremely cohesive. When I was first figuring out my style, this led to a lot of stress for me. I felt that to be fashionable I had to pick an aesthetic and stick to it. My outfits every day had to match the one from the day before and still look cute. To me, influencers were the height of success and style. I wanted an enviable wardrobe and coordinated feed just like them. It wasn’t until I started to analyze the place fashion influencers had in my life that I knew what I wanted my style to be.
The main reason that I tend to avoid any advice from fashion influencers (and most influencers in general) is they often perpetuate toxic practices. They can be playing a part in increasingly fast trend cycles, encouraging fast fashion practices such as expensive hauls, or just instigating the idea that no outfit should be worn twice. It’s that last piece that always stuck out in the back of my mind.
Because fashion influencers need to post frequently to keep our attention, they don’t seem to be wearing the same outfits or garments more than once. They seem to buy new pieces weekly and always have something new to show off. Obviously, on a broke college student budget, I can’t keep up with this. If I was to follow that message to have a specifically themed aesthetic style, I would find myself buying a new wardrobe every time I wanted to try a new look. Even if I didn’t have a specific style but wanted to stay relevant with trends, an increasingly fast trend cycle would have me buying new pieces regularly just to stay relevant. This often led to me worrying that someone would notice I was repeating outfits or wearing the same pants I wore last week.
When I began parting ways with fashion influencers, I started to find a style that made me happy. Instead of focusing on a specific aesthetic, I try to pick pieces in colors I know I love and will wear. Instead of buying into every trend, I try to differentiate which ones I actually like and which will work in my wardrobe for years.
I think everyone should take the time to examine who they find fashionable and why. Do you want to be like that influencer because you actually like their style or because their feed is just so aesthetically pleasing? Do you need to find a specific aesthetic or do you just prefer wearing what makes you happy every day? Your style will change repeatedly over your lifetime. Worrying about what everyone else is doing will stop you from discovering what makes you beautiful.